Sanders’ Oregon Win Extends Democratic Presidential Primary

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sandersand his supporters are sure making life hard for the Party’s front-runner Hillary Clinton, who appears eager to focus on Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

But Clinton cannot pivot toward the general election without first dispatching away with Sanders, who eked out another primary win Tuesday in Oregon. While Clinton leads the race, she still has to achieve 2,383 delegates before becoming the Party’s nominee. According to The Associated Press, Clinton has won 2,291 delegates to Sanders’ 1,528.

Clinton won Kentucky by a razor-thin margin, while Sanders notched a bigger 53% to 47% victory in Oregon. The 61 delegates Kentucky had on the line and Oregon’s 74 will be divided proportionally among the two candidates based on results in those states — and that’s the bad news for Sanders. He needs to win by overwhelming margins the rest of the way to stand a chance at catching Clinton.

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Sanders’ win in Oregon wasn’t nearly enough to put him in a realistic place to overtake Clinton in the number of pledged delegates — but it did mean he’ll close Tuesday’s contests with more delegates that day than Clinton, and it’ll keep his campaign chugging along.

The largely white, liberal, homogenous state was the perfect place for a Sanders victory. He was so confident he’d win Oregon that he spent the days leading up to the primary campaigning in California and Puerto Rico.

During a victory speech Tuesday in California, Sanders told supporters he planned to stay in the race “’til the last ballot is cast,” dismissing calls for him to drop out.